Should Libertarian candidate Charles Zach win a seat in the provincial election on June 12, he says he’d make it his mission as an MPP to “get out of the way.”

Zach, 55, is one of 74 Libertarian candidates running in Ontario. The party’s primary mandate calls for less government, period.

“Let free markets do what they should do,” said the information technology expert who wants to “take over the government and give it back to the people.”

Zach wants to eliminate monopolies in beer and liquor stores, health care, hydro and mass transit, to name a few of the businesses in which he believes governments should not be involved.

"Ontario was the envy of the world as an economic engine with lots of opportunities for business to come and make a profit and prosper." - Charles Zach, Libertarian candidate

“They are inefficient, expensive and leave taxpayers with no choice,” said Zach, who is the first Libertarian candidate to run in the Burlington riding.

The married father of three daughters, ages 19, 11 and six, says that it’s unfair the future generation of voters will be saddled with the crippling $388 billion deficit. The Liberals use of deficit spending as policy has created “run-away, record-high debt that none of the other parties are arresting,” he added.

Under Libertarian rule, government would be prohibited from operating a deficit.

The party’s mandate is focused on protecting individual rights and limited to controlling police, courts and military.

“Who knows better than you how to run your life,” Zach asked.

The born and bred Burlingtonian continues to live in the city because he believes it is still one of the best places to live in Canada. It’s also one of the safest places to live, Zach added. So he is stumped when the regional police budget is increased 12 per cent to help expand the force. “It’s an abuse of resources,” Zach said. “because it means drivers will be criminalized through traffic fines to help subsidize the force.”

He is also stumped by the continued existence of the 15-year-old Drive Clean program that requires Ontario motorists to get their vehicles tested to limit air pollution. It has surpassed its usefulness, in Zach’s view.

Technological improvements in automotive engineering such as fuel-injected engines that help curb toxic vehicle emissions make Drive Clean redundant, he added.

“It’s a solution to a problem that no longer exists and has become a revenue source to feed the monster.”

Gas taxes intended to fund mass transit are not easing congestion and therefore not remediating the problem, which is another reason to hand over the task to the private sector. “Government does the job of problem solving poorly,” said Zach.

Zach believes Ontario has the highest hydro rates in Canada due to the monopoly allowed by the provincial government; and he says that currently 50 per cent of Ontarians work for the government directly or indirectly. Both models are unsustainable, he added.

In other words, he prefers to shop around for his health-care services, his children’s education and hydro needs.

In his view, private enterprise and economic growth are the best means to fill the province’s coffers. In that respect, Zach said he is not comfortable with Ontario’s new degraded ‘have not’ economic status.

“Ontario was the envy of the world as an economic engine with lots of opportunities for business to come and make a profit and prosper.” But he is concerned that “The government will impose further oppressive laws and processes to force the innocent citizens of Ontario to pay for their irresponsible behavior and mismanagement of state finances.”

As a staunch advocate of grassroots democracy he believes that a governing party must be non-authoritarian, transparent, accountable and responsive to its citizens.

He believes that the inalienable rights and liberty of the individual is sacrosanct and are not to be infringed upon by the state. Like the Libertarian Party’s policies, Zach is also a staunch believer in civil liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of worship and assembly, and private property rights. He believes that the raison d’être and moral responsibility of any Ontario government is to protect and preserve these individual rights and freedoms at all costs.

Zach believes that the traditional Canadian values, civil liberty, freedoms and inalienable rights that made Ontario great are under attack and are being systematically eroded. In his Libertarian view there is no room for authoritarian big government and its “inefficient unresponsive state monopolies, high taxation, reckless deficit spending, unjust criminalization of the populace as a revenue stream, a subverted democracy and an oppressive system that degrades faith in the rule of law.”

Finally, he said only the Libertarian Party of Ontario stands apart from all of the other mainstream political parties.

“The OLP is the viable choice to save Ontario from the financial brink and the social crisis that will inevitably follow,” Zach said.